Slender Greenbrier County turnout for primary election

The primary election’s results are in. Listed are the unofficial results for Tuesday, May 13 election in which only 4,678 votes in Greenbrier County were cast. With all 29 precincts reporting, two-term County Commissioner Karen Lobban, with 820 votes, was defeated by Democratic competitor Christian Giggenbach with 1,047 votes in the county’s Democratic primary on Tuesday.

Other candidates for the Democratic nomination include Bobby White with 548 votes, and Ed Delong with 747.

On the Republican side, candidate Lowell Rose, with 757 votes, earned his party’s nomination for the commission race, besting challenger Sue Traynor Spicer, who garnered 469 votes. Giggenbach and Rose will face off for the commission seat in November.

With no other candidates listed on either ballot, incumbent Democrat Robin Loudermilk will win the office of county clerk. Loudermilk was appointed in 2012 to serve out the unexpired term of retired clerk William Livesay, Sr.

Hazel Flanagan Reed, Kay Smith and Jeanie Porterfield Wyatt led Greenbrier County’s school board race. Wyatt with 3,077 votes and Smith with 2,409 are current school board members. Reed, with 2,614 votes, is vying for the seat vacated by board president Kathy King.

On the state level, Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito and Democrat Natalie Tennant captured primary wins on Tuesday, setting the stage for a historic U.S. Senate showdown in November that will give West Virginia its first female senator.

Capito is a seven-term congresswoman and daughter of former Gov. Arch Moore. Tennant is the state’s secretary of state. Both enjoyed runaway victories and will square off in November to replace Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who is retiring after 30 years.

West Virginia has become increasingly Republican, and Capito enters the general election contest as the heavy favorite. If elected, she would be the first Republican senator from West Virginia since 1959.

Democrat Nick Rahall, who has represented West Virginia in the House of Representatives since 1977, won against veteran Richard Ojeda for the Democratic nomination with 36,793 votes to 18,626 votes. He will face Republican State Senator Evan Jenkins who is in the running for the seat. Jenkins, who switched parties in July 2013, got 14,127 votes.

In the 42 District WV House of Representatives race, incumbents Ray Canterbury and George “Boogie” Ambler ran unopposed on the Republican ticket. Canterbury received 1,087 votes to Ambler’s 884 votes. Both are facing two first-time Democratic contenders, Dr. Coy Flowers, who got 1,864 votes and Courtney Jesser, who garnered 1,619 votes.